Flowers Under Glass

A friend told me about a cool way to create an artsy photo.  When taking a flower picture, put a piece of art glass between the camera lens and the flower.

Here is a columbine naturally.

Here it is behind the artglass.

Here are a group of daylilies.

You have more distortion when the glass is farther from the flowers. And it is a little more realistic when the glass is closer to the flowers.

June 15 - Nature Photography Day

What does a nature photographer do on Nature Photography Day...why she goes out and takes pictures.  It was a beautiful day and my husband and I planned a bike ride at the Chicago Botanic Gardens and southward through some of the Cook County forest preserves.  Some things we saw on the way were .....the Japanese Gardens

and a pair of swans with cygnets.

We came back and had lunch at the garden's cafe, took a tour of a nice photo exhibit by the Garden Photographic Society and took in part of the gardens including these lily pads

The gardens were advertising their new exhibit Butterflies and Blooms where they have about 600 butterflies.  We decided to check it out and I had fun photographing these pretty flitters.

It was a great day over all.  Happy summer photographing to you.





Fireworks

    


     Summer is here and that means one of my favorite things....fireworks!  Winthrop Harbor had their annual summer faire this weekend and with that they had fireworks tonight.  I had to experiment taking a lot of pictures to get a few nice images captured.  These are some of my favorites.  They look like exotic flowers.
     To take these pictures, I set my camera at ISO 100, f8 and put my camera on a tripod.  I experimented with taking pictures at 3 sec., 6 sec., 8 sec. and 10 sec.  This way I could get just one burst or a few bursts in the same picture.

Flower Genetics

 I have photographed the Indian Paintbrush at Illinois Beach State Park for a number of years.  There was an area that was all yellow paintbrush.

 And there was an area in a different location of all red paintbrush.

This year there were a lot of flowers and they seemed to have mixed together.

 This created a different color. They were kind of orange, kind of salmon colored.

Here you can see the yellow and red combined.  Oh the fun of it all.

Same flower different colors

The nice thing about planting a wildflower garden is that you can have beautiful blooms close at hand to go out and photograph.  One of the beautiful flowers out right now are Columbine.   Here are the varieties I have.  You can experiment with different backgrounds and angles.

Collage

So now you have been out taking a lot of pictures this spring.  So what do you do with all these pictures?  One thing I have found that is fun is to use a photo editing program like Picassa to create a collage of several pictures with a theme.  Here is one I just did of flowers and spring plants.

What is the cost of a picture?

It was a beautiful morning albeit somewhat chilly- 37 degrees when I left the house to take pictures at Petrifying Springs and Hawthorn Hollow.   The search to find a piece of spring blooming here or there.  A brisk walk through the woods.  Ahh!  After several hours it is time to get home.  Wait…there is a couple sitting on a bench watching a variety of birds flit in and out from several bird feeders that are set up near a hedge of evergreen trees.  Hmm!  Maybe I should change to my long telephoto lens and get some shots here before I leave.  I go to my trunk and make the switch out.  Whew!  It is a nice sunny day and things have warmed up a bit.  It must be about 60 degrees now.  I certainly don’t need my heavy coat any longer.  I take it off and throw it in the trunk and slam it closed.  So there!  As soon as it was done I realized what I had done.  Oh, nooooo!  My car keys and cell phone are in the pocket of my jacket.  What is the cost to my heart sinking to my feet?  What is the cost to my pride of feeling really stupid?  What is the cost of knowing I have to call my husband and tell him what I just did and beg him to bail me out?  What is the cost of embarrassment in having to run after that couple, complete strangers, that have now left the bench and headed on a hike into the woods and ask them if they have a cell phone I can use?  I don’t feel worth much right now.  Well, at least I have my camera and I can sit and take pictures of the birds while I wait the half hour for Wayne to come.   After the rescue, I get in my car and go home.  Life goes on.  Now I sit here at my computer and look at the pictures I took this morning.  Ah yes, things are looking up.  So what is it worth to look at the pictures and remember the beautiful walk  I took this morning before the silly incident?  As the commercial says….priceless!